This weekend I have had to deal with diarrhoea and vomiting. The dragon has spent pretty much the entire weekend in bed. I have been a good husband and father however. I have provided meals, recreational activity, and a hygienic environment for those family members well enough to enjoy them. I think the high point was probably last night’s spaghetti sauce which was really rather special. My worry is that am now going to fall prey to this bug myself.
The boy asked me to teach him how to play poker. This is not something one would usually teach a nine year old I suppose, but we had a go using matches for chips. He surprised me. He’s not ready for competition level poker yet, and he doesn’t really understand the concept of the “poker face”, but he has the concept.
And on to something else; here’s a story I’m stumbled across several times last week. A course at a San Diego University is asking students to perform naked in order to pass one module. In fact there are two versions of this story, and I’m not sure which I believe. One angry mother is apparently outraged because her daughter was told recently that she must perform naked in front of her class or fail the course. The university however claims the students were all informed about the nude aspect of the module at the very start of the class, and that it’s an optional module, and students aren’t required to actually take their clothes off anyway.
As we all know, I have no problem with nudity, in fact I think it’s pretty fun. I’d have no issue with a child of mine taking the course and performing nude if he/she wanted to. I can understand why some students might not want to, and I can even understand why some parents are against it. I assume we’re talking about 18-year-old students however, and in my view, that’s old enough to make the decision. I do question the point of asking students to partake in this sort of thing. But it’s an art class, and I don’t pretend to understand art, and I certainly refuse to take it seriously. I can’t help wondering whether I would have done a nude performance module when I was 18. I like to think I would.
I don’t think I have ever heard a very good argument for banning or avoiding nudity. I realise I have a rather biased view, but stay with me. This week I have read that a councillor in Portsmouth is asking police to limit the activities allowed during the local Naked Bike Ride next month. Although Luke Stubbs claims he has no problem with nudity is designated places, he doesn’t want to see it in residential areas or on the seafront. Apparently, “Stripping off outside houses where children live is not okay”. That point is fine as far as it goes, but, stating that it’s “not okay” without providing a reason is not an argument. And that’s typical when people oppose nudity. They don’t really seem to have a very firm idea of what exactly is “not okay” about it.
Today I read about a young woman from Hong Kong who did a nude bungy jump in Chiang Mai, Thailand. OK, perhaps not something everyone wants to do, but she did it. The company got fined and now the police are hunting for the woman. And the argument; “Chiang Mai is a city of culture and this kind of behaviour will not be tolerated”. So, nudity is anti-culture? Doesn’t appear to be a problem in the case of Michael Angelo’s Boy David, or Botticelli’s Venus, quite the opposite in fact. Although, did anyone else notice that Fox News felt it was necessary to censor Picasso’s Women of Algiers while reporting on the record selling price?
Loading comments...